Audio Books: Love or Hate?

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A Love/Hate for me. Listen to them in the car and get about 12-14 listening hours a week with them. And I do enjoy them. I hate them though when I get to about 75% done and weekend hits; I often wish I could somehow turn the audio file into a kindle file and finish it up over the weekend.

Without a commute I wouldn't give them a second look though; I get too distracted and I can read so much faster.

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I listen to audio books while doing my workouts. Just recently I was so sick I couldn't read, or watch movies or do anything at all -- confined to bed. I found lying in the dark and listening was something I could do.

I like them very much for histories published about subjects that aren't in my specialty, so I don't need the reference pages and citations, as do for my own research subjects. It's like going on vacation to get to listen to histories about eras and subjects that aren't work! Sometimes the books turns out to so good that I want it for my own reference shelves, and I need its cites and documentation, so I buy it in the print version. It's too bad that maps and illustrations and such other matter can't be available in audio format, not really. They don't work in other e-formats either -- you can't do professional level scholarship on kindles, etc.

Oddly I don't like listening to fiction, and seldom do, since I don't read much fiction any longer in print either. When I do I tend to skip over big chunks because it may be too violent, too boring, too cliched, too sloppy, and just not interesting, and quit long before the end.

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I used to hate them until about six years ago. I tended to be unable to focus on them for whatever reason and got distracted, constantly had to skip backward to re-listen to whole sections that I spaced out for. Plus I just liked actual paper books in my hands, same reason I don't like using Kindles and such.

Then around the time the GoT HBO series started I wanted to read the novels but I was working and going to school full time then and had no time at all to spare them. Luckily (or unluckily depending on how you look at it) I was working in a mail room at the time stuffing envelopes. One of the most soul crushingly monotonous jobs that exist as far as I'm concerned, and the boss told me straight up on the first day that he recommended bringing headphones and an MP3 player to keep ourselves sane. So I went for the Roy Dotrice audio versions, and they were fan-fucking-tastic.

Problem is now I can't go back to regular books. I'm so used to being able to multi-task while reading that just sitting there with a book doing literally nothing else feels like a waste of time. I could be cleaning or cooking or going for a walk all while taking in this same story. Plus my current job is also cool with headphones, so I listen to books all day.

Major downside being when it comes to independently published books, or smaller authors, or more niche titles, there often isn't an audio version available and I just end up skipping over them.

This post is me!

I started a job in which I was by myself doing monotonous work for a solid 60 minutes every single day. I'd read GOT and knew I wouldn't have the time to re-read so I said F it and bought the books. Roy Dotrice is fantastic. Now, like yourself, I can't get back to regular books for the same reason: NOTHING feels like a waste of time. I can do ANYTHING and listen. yes, I re listen to chapters a lot, but it's the same when I used to re read a passage for clarification.

Try Audible. Therre are a TON of books there, including self published authors.

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Audible is also a factor with Audioboks for me in the sense some releases are cheaper (via their "token" system) than hardback releases in some cases. It's only the collector side in me that would swing for the hardback over the audiobook in terms of cold hard cash. It's odd because the Audiobook clearly must cost more in terms of production.

I know what you mean, but a lot of the series I'm ready aren't finished so I didn't want to invest in a hardcover until the series was done and delux collector's editions were released. I spent hundreds of dollars collecting the Clan of the Cave Bear series in hard cover only to have new cover editions released before the next book was finished so I stopped.

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I usually do them in conjunction... hard copy and audio simultaneously (albeit not the most financially economical way to go)... so when I'm at home I'll read on the hard copy, then when on the commute or a long drive pick up in audio where I left off last reading, and vice versa. If not for this I'd not manage to finish more than 4-5 books in a year if only reading at home when I have time.

Narrators can make or break the audiobook for me though... I've found a few that were insufferable, but most are in the decent to great range.

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I want to like them because I have a long commute back and forth to work. But, like others have said, I tend to zone out at times. Personally, I find that podcasts work better. If I lose focus for a bit, I don't feel a need to go back and listen to every word with a podcast, like I would with an audiobook.